Hamas Hamas Juden ins gas!
An inhuman chant of the popular frontists
The constitutive terms of the class struggle do not transpose onto other types of conflict except to the extent that the proletariat belongs to the class struggle and the struggle, in practice, turns out to be more of an internally conflicted 'relation' than what is ordinarily understood as a conflict. Then, there is some congruity between class struggle and other social 'tensions', but this is not compatible with the ideological transposition of terms between them - the proletariat is not another instance of an underdog that is destined to have its day.
The congruity between class and other social categories persists to the extent that the victory of the proletariat is not an objective to be pursued any more than is the victory of a 'people' or 'nation'. Class war is not a type of war. That is to say, class war is not a type of war beyond the requirement that both war and class must be abolished. It is a type of war only to the degree that we might wish defeat upon all sides - and thereby, the historical disappearance of their dispute. Then, the necessity for the undoing of the constitutive components of the class relation is the only basis for the resemblance of class to other types of social conflict.
The proletariat is not an oppressed people, nor is it like a colonised 'nation'... its 'war' is similar only to wars of 'liberation' in that all wars are incompatible with human community - it is a record of a defeat that has already occurred. The cessation of class conflict occurs where the proletariat ceases to appear as a pole within the relation of domination - there is no victory but only release from the trap of existing conditions. Let there be no victories and in its more sophisticated form, as that appears in the anti-militarist demonstrations in Israel: let there be no victories, and least of all ours. Let Islam achieve the same level of consciousness, let it stage demonstrations in favour of the other side and for the defeat of its own forces.
The confluence of class awareness (which appears in imperative form directed towards the undoing of the class relation) with the unfortunately termed internationalism (i.e anti-nationalism) as its critical practice, is the hard won response to the claims and counterclaims of competing ideological formations centred around varying types of parochialism. The resultant 'political' position of this class-aware internationalism (no war but any war) discloses the rallying cry for a 'Free Palestine' as a retreat from the possibility of human community. Leftist support for reactionary nationalism on the grounds of siding with the underdog is both preposterous and repugnant - it is a wanton irrationality. Whomsoever brandishes the Palestinian flag sustains the general category of nationhood.
And yet this left sentimentalism is also intelligible. Of more interest than ostensible popular frontist rationalisations around my enemy's enemy, is the how of leftism's pro-nationalism. It appears in protest form against the historical process of demolition and bulldozing of that which has been defeated. The left perpetually seeks another means for returning to the historically obsolete modes of religion, nation state and sentimentalised cultural specificity. Indeed, this seeking out of ways back, is the left's political function.
Historically, it has been the task of communists to simply refute this backward drifting of the left (which hitherto has been understood as mere opportunism and blatant racketeering). The refutation has always taken the same form: there can be no dialogue (and still less common cause) with the nation, with religion, with class. In their approach to leftism, it has been conventional for communists to fall into line with the processive historical lock-out of obsolete forms in the name of proliferating historical potentialities. Evidently, this policy is inadequate and implicitly assumes the absolute unworthiness of all of that which is no longer supported by the present productive apparatus.
Whilst it is true that all past social forms institutionalised themselves as a specific mode of inhuman violence, repression and denial, they also recorded something of an eternally renewed 'passion and will' for the human community. The left has imperfectly sought out connection to that which is good but buried in the past. This is not to suggest that a 'return' to that which is otherwise lost forever is a plausible or even desirable option. National liberation is untenable and in all cases incompatible with human community - the no state, no religion and no class demands communism makes upon society remains invariable. There can not be and must never be a 'free Palestine'. However, that is not the end of the matter.
Whilst the left's historical function seems to be the dredging up of reactionary social formations in inappropriately hysterical terms, it is correct in one aspect of its project: past forms are integral to the human community and cannot simply be buried by a constant process of 'overcoming'. Camatte, in The Wandering of Humanity suggests an alternative and therapeutic approach to past forms. His suggestion is based within his use of the systems theory concept of relaxation of active functions. An obstructive function is said to be relaxed where energy has been therapeutically drawn away, or released from it.
The current war for islamification is also bringing forth a new generation of specifically muslim atheists, and at some point this generation will have to reengage with that which it currently repudiates outright. Their project will be to go back to the parent discourse and release the particular 'passion and will' for human community that is uniquely encoded within Islam and thereby release it from its institutionalised violence. The profundity of the specific historical project of the muslim atheists will starkly contrast with the inadequacy of leftist categories of 'people's', 'nations' and 'imperialism'.
Historically, it has been the task of communists to simply refute this backward drifting of the left (which hitherto has been understood as mere opportunism and blatant racketeering). The refutation has always taken the same form: there can be no dialogue (and still less common cause) with the nation, with religion, with class. In their approach to leftism, it has been conventional for communists to fall into line with the processive historical lock-out of obsolete forms in the name of proliferating historical potentialities. Evidently, this policy is inadequate and implicitly assumes the absolute unworthiness of all of that which is no longer supported by the present productive apparatus.
Whilst it is true that all past social forms institutionalised themselves as a specific mode of inhuman violence, repression and denial, they also recorded something of an eternally renewed 'passion and will' for the human community. The left has imperfectly sought out connection to that which is good but buried in the past. This is not to suggest that a 'return' to that which is otherwise lost forever is a plausible or even desirable option. National liberation is untenable and in all cases incompatible with human community - the no state, no religion and no class demands communism makes upon society remains invariable. There can not be and must never be a 'free Palestine'. However, that is not the end of the matter.
Whilst the left's historical function seems to be the dredging up of reactionary social formations in inappropriately hysterical terms, it is correct in one aspect of its project: past forms are integral to the human community and cannot simply be buried by a constant process of 'overcoming'. Camatte, in The Wandering of Humanity suggests an alternative and therapeutic approach to past forms. His suggestion is based within his use of the systems theory concept of relaxation of active functions. An obstructive function is said to be relaxed where energy has been therapeutically drawn away, or released from it.
The current war for islamification is also bringing forth a new generation of specifically muslim atheists, and at some point this generation will have to reengage with that which it currently repudiates outright. Their project will be to go back to the parent discourse and release the particular 'passion and will' for human community that is uniquely encoded within Islam and thereby release it from its institutionalised violence. The profundity of the specific historical project of the muslim atheists will starkly contrast with the inadequacy of leftist categories of 'people's', 'nations' and 'imperialism'.
The struggle against reduction of the amplitude of the revolution is already a revolutionary struggle. The reader should not be astonished if to support this amplitude we refer to authors classically tagged religious, mystical, etc. What matters is the reappropriation of Gemeinwesen (and past beings are part of it), which can only be done after the unification of the species, and this unification can only be conceived by grasping the aspiration, desire, passion and will for community expressed through the ages. The human being can simultaneously be a Gemeinwesen only if humanity lives in community. As soon as fragmentation appears, the need to recompose a unity emerges. In the West this unity had a mediate and coercive form: the individual was defined by the State; knowledge was a means for hierarchization and for justification of the established order; the vicious circle of practice-theory emerged.
Camatte, The Wandering of humanity
Specifically Muslim atheists: http://www.exmuslimblogs.com
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